June 18, 2012 -- Winter Has Its End/Kasama Project, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal at the request of the author. It has been slightly abridged -- Eric Ribellarsi met with 10 young members of the Communist
Organization of Greece (KOE), which is part of the Coalition of the Radical Left, SYRIZA. [The KOE comes out of the Maoist tradition and is the second-largest component of SYRIZA.] They discussed their backgrounds,
experiences, the student movement, the orthodox Communist Party in
Greece (KKE), revolutionary strategy and the political choices of
revolutionary communists within the Greek crisis. Eric Ribellarsi is part of a reporting team in Greece.

* * *

Can you tell me how some of you became communists? How did you come to join KOE?

June 18, 2012 -- Green Left TV/Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Afrodity Giannakis, Green Left Weekly correspondent in Greece and an activist in SYRIZA, gives her first impressions of the result of the June 17 general election where the conservative New Democracy beat the left coalition SYRIZA into first place by just 3% of the vote. Younger voters voted strongly for the left while older voters tended to vote conservative.

June 18, 2012 -- Links international Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The Coalition of the Radical Left, SYRIZA, just failed in it's second attempt to become the largest party in Greece's parliament, winning 26.9% of the vote in the June 17 general election, up from 17%. The right-wing New Democracy party came in first with almost 29.7%. SYRIZA was up against enormous odds, with the weight of Europe's ruling classes unleashing an all-out propaganda offensive against it.

June 7, 2012 – Links
International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- After long months of
campaigning, the French presidential election came to a close on the evening of
May 6. As predicted, the victor, and therefore seventh president of the Fifth
Republic, was Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande. However, the margin
of victory, at 51.6 per cent to 48.4 per cent, was narrow, and closer than any
of the polls had foreseen.

So France now has a new president and a new
government, presided over by long-time Hollande ally and Socialist Party
stalwart Jean-Marc Ayrault and composed of members of the Socialist Party and
its Green and left radical allies. Of course, this government has necessarily
an interim character, since it does not have a majority in parliament. Whether
it wins one or not will be decided in parliamentary elections to be held in two
rounds on June 10 and 17.

"...this
isn't just another election. The choice is between a New Democracy-led
austerity government, which would be immensely demoralising, and a
SYRIZA-led anti-austerity government, which would give the whole
continental left a massive shot in the arm and open up a host of new
possibilities. This is a key moment in which a great deal is condensed,
which will be formative of a great deal of the political and
ideological terrain for some time, and any formation that appears to
bring the latter possibility closer isn't helping the industrial
struggle."

May 27, 2012 -- Green Left Weekly -- Red carpet and champagne marked the start of the first Red-Green
Alliance (RGA) congress since the party tripled its mandate at a poll in
September last year.

The 385 delegates representing the 8000 members packed a basketball
stadium in the migrant and working-class Copenhagen suburb of Norrebro
to grapple with the party's new increased influence on Danish politics.

Party membership has more than doubled in the past two years, with
the party welcoming into its ranks many ex-members of the Social
Democratic and Socialist People's parties.

Danes voted in droves in last year's elections to punish the
right-wing parties. The poll resulted in the Social Democrats heading a
coalition government — and Denmark's first woman prime minister. But
this took place on the back of the lowest vote for the Social Democrats
since 1906.

There was also a collapse in support for the country's most
right-wing parties, including the overtly racist Danish People's Party
(DPP). The vote for left parties rose.

The Social Liberals are the most conservative of the four
left-of-centre parties supporting the government and the RGA the most
radical.

May 27, 2012 -- The following is translated from the daily bulletin of Italy’s Communist Refoundation Party, which has published the official program of the Greek coalition of the radical
left, SYRIZA. The text was first translated by and posted at The Greanville Post. It is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal in the interests of informing the discussion on the left response to the Greek crisis.

* * *

1. Audit of the public debt and renegotiation of interest due and
suspension of payments until the economy has revived and growth and
employment return.

2. Demand the European Union to change the role of the European Central
Bank so that it finances states and programs of public investment.

3. Raise income tax to 75% for all incomes over 500,000 euros.

4. Change the election laws to a proportional system.

5. Increase taxes on big companies to that of the European average.

6. Adoption of a tax on financial transactions and a special tax on
luxury goods.

May 28, 2012 -- Socialist Resistance -- Syriza’s stunning vote in the recent elections has shaken the Greek
and European ruling classes to their foundations. It was a total
rejection of the austerity package, on a progressive basis, by 60% of
the electorate and has created not only the biggest crisis, but the most
significant class confrontation in Europe since the Portuguese
revolution of 1974.

May
25, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The US-UK
axis is quite adroit at launching aggressive wars against governments and
peoples who do not buckle under. Today’s method of domination is often linked
with media propaganda about doing the right thing for “human rights”.

In the case of its ally Sri Lanka, it did not need to send troops to win the
war against the Tamils’ struggle for liberation. The Western powers have provided
Sri Lankan governments and military with weaponry, war intelligence and
training to win the long war against Tamil nationhood. But, after the mutual victory,
the axis has also criticised the current government for having committed
excesses.

While China and Russia also militarily and economically assisted Sri Lankan
governments in avoiding federalism for the two peoples: majority Sinhalese and minority
Tamils, they did so without the hyperbole of “protecting human rights”. Unfortunately,
Cuba and its associates in the eight Latin American ALBA countries (Bolivarian
Alliance of the peoples of the Americas) got caught up in the geopolitical game
by supporting Sinhalese chauvinism politically but without funds and weapons.

May 13, 2012 -- Green Left Weekly -- Compared with a southern Europe stricken by ever-rising unemployment
and government attacks on social welfare and democratic rights,
Luxembourg can feel as if it is on another, much more pleasant, planet.

The richest country in Europe ― with gross domestic product per
capita at least 30% higher than that of the US, unemployment at 5.9% and
the second-lowest public sector debt to GDP ratio ― this most important
financial centre after London’s City would seem to be floating above
the crisis.

However, the resolutions adopted at the April 22 ninth ordinary congress of Luxembourg’s Dei Lenk (The Left) revealed another picture ―
of the country’s advanced social model coming under rising attack, and
of this offensive meeting rising resistance from the union movement and
the left.

Solidarity Breakfast

May 14, 2012 -- Coalition of Resistance -- Britain's Greece Solidarity Campaign's recent delegation to Athens met with Alexis Tsipras, leader of SYRIZA, the Coalition of the Radical Left and president of Synaspismos. The delegation meeting him included national representatives from several trade unions UNITE, the Communication Workers Union, the Fire Brigades Union and the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association.

Tsipras described as "catastrophic" the impact of austerity on
Greek society, describing public hospitals on the brink of collapse
with a shortage of medical supplies, and there were no new books at the
start of the school year, so parents were forced to photocopy old ones.
He said "it’s only a matter of time before the next social explosion".

Tsipras told the delegation that if austerity is the "prescription"
to cure the economic crisis, it is "the medicine of disaster" and that
the policies being imposed by the International Monetary Fund/European Union and World Bank are destroying
social cohesion, destroying the political system and destroying the
economy.

A united front of the left and sustained mass mobilisation are desperately needed in Greece.

By
Michael Karadjis

May
16, 2012 – Links International Journal of
Socialist Renewal -- This article does not aim to give a full account of
the current Greek political crisis. Rather, the crisis will be discussed with a
focus on the failure of the Greek left to form a united front in the hour of
need of the masses, with a historical look at the nature of the Greek left and
the parties involved in it.

The
sensational outcome of the May 6, 2012, Greek elections, in which SYRIZA, a
coalition of left-reformist and radical left organisations, gained nearly 17%
of the vote, second only to the right-wing New Democracy (ND) party, comes on
the back of the catastrophe being imposed on the Greek working class as it is
forced to pay for the crisis of Greek and European capital.

STOP PRESS, May 13, 2012 -- In the wake of the failure of the three first-placed parties to secure a parliamentary majority, it is almost certain that a new election will be held. New opinion polls released May 12 show that support for Greece's austerity parties continues to drop, while the radical left SYRIZA
has increased its vote since the May 6 elections, and is now Greece's most popular party. According to a poll by Kapa Research, SYRIZA Coalition of Radical Left would receive 20.5% of votes, 3.7% higher than May 6. Support for New Democracy fell to 18.1% from 18.85% in the elections, while PASOK would receive 12.2%, down from 13.2%. Support for the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party fell to 5.8% from 7%, above the 3% threshold needed to enter
parliament. The right-wing Independent Greeks was on 8.4%, while support for the Democratic Left party is on 5% and the KKE 6.5%. Another opinion poll published May 12 showed SYRIZA on
25.5% if elections were held now.